Lac-Mégantic: TSB calls for immediate review

Adam Kovac, The Gazette06.03.2014

Transport Safety Board officials leave a brief press conference in Lac-Mégantic on Friday July 19, 2013. A Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway train became a runaway train and derailed, exploding in the centre of Lac-Mégantic on July 6th.

"Insufficient" handbrakes on the runaway train of oil tankers that derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic are the central focus of the continuing investigation, Transportation Safety Board of Canada officials said Friday. But whether it was human or mechanical error is still under scrutiny.

In the meantime, the TSB urged Transport Canada to immediately review its safety regulations governing the railway industry based on its initial findings.

Don Ross, the head TSB investigator of the crash in Lac-Mégantic, said the agency has sent Transport Canada two safety advisory letters recommending an analysis of rules on securing equipment and the practice of leaving trains transporting dangerous goods on a main track unattended.

"There's a link between this accident and others that we've investigated, such as the one that occurred in Dorée, Quebec ... which also concerned the securement of trains and grades," said Ross, referring to a runaway train in December 2011. That train did not derail, despite travelling about 15 miles with no one at the controls, and reaching a top speed of 100 kilometres per hour.

In addition to the airbrakes that are engaged on locomotives, the DOT-111 oil tankers in the train operated by the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway have handbrakes that must be manually applied.

"What we know is that handbrakes are highly variable. Not only is the mechanism highly variable ... but also the input effort can vary from person to person," he added.

In the letter concerning unattended equipment, the TSB cites Canadian Railroad Operating Rules section 112, which says only that a "sufficient" amount of handbrakes must be applied. The letter calls this directive "insufficient," as it fails to provide guidelines for specific conditions, such as when a train is left on an incline.

The train that crashed into Lac-Mégantic was parked nine kilometres uphill in

Nantes on a 1.2 per cent grade. MMA would have had its own internal guidelines for how many handbrakes had to be engaged.

The second letter said that thus far the investigation has concluded that "MMA's operating plan was to leave the train on the main track, unattended, with an unlocked locomotive cab, parked alongside a public highway where it was accessible to the general public, with no additional protection."

The letter recommends that Transport Canada direct railroad companies not to leave trains that are carrying dangerous cargoes unattended on a main track.

Transport Canada will be reviewing these recommendations "on an expedited basis," spokesperson Kelly James said in an email.

Late Friday, Canadian Pacific Railway announced that it would comply with the TSB's recommendations.

"All trains with tank cars with regulated commodities (including crude oil) will not be left unattended on main line tracks," said a CP spokesman, Ed Greenberg. "If it is necessary to leave a train outside a terminal or yard, the locomotive will be locked. This was already occurring in high-risk locations, but will be formally applied throughout the network."

Canadian National Railway already has "robust safety securement policies for unattended trains," Mark Hallman, director of communications and public affairs, said in a statement, including specific measures for the transport of dangerous goods.

"CN Police also work closely with other police forces and security agencies to identify potential threats to the company's rail network. In addition, CN Police actively enforce no-trespass laws to prevent unauthorized entry onto CN property. As details of CN's security measures are confidential, CN has no further comment."

It's not yet clear whether the train began rolling into Lac-Mégantic because not enough handbrakes had been applied or because of a mechanical failure of the brakes themselves.

"It's (an issue) of the number of brakes, and the quality of brakes," said Ed Belkaloul, the TSB eastern region manager for rail operations. "Those are the elements that will assure the immobilization of the train."

Ross said the investigation will also be looking to determine the cause of the fire on the train parked in Nantes following the conductor's shift.

In a statement released a day after the explosion, MMA said that the Nantes fire department had inadvertently caused the air brake system to fail when they shut down a locomotive that had caught fire.

That may be the case, Ross said, however "the securement of trains is not dependent on the air brake system." Investigators are also sending samples of the petroleum found within the tankers for analysis.

"It was the type of oil called light crude, but we're determining exactly what the composition of it was," and whether any elements present may have contributed to an explosion, Belkaloul said.

In a Globe and Mail report published on Friday, MMA chairman Ed Burkhardt was quoted as saying that light crude oil does not explode, and the shipment's chemical contents may have been mislabelled. The article quoted experts who theorized that the shipment may have contained oil with a high natural concentration of flammable elements.